Analysis of the spatio-temporal distribution of large earthquakes

The investigation on the spatio-temporal distribution of large earthquakes is still a controversial issue in geophysics and many works in scientific literature have been devoted to this topic. The importance of understanding the statistical distribution of large events is aimed not only to extract information on the physics of the earthquakes occurrence process, but also to make reliable earthquake forecasting. As far as theoretical aspects are concerned, a satisfactory modelling may allow, at least in principle, to test a variety of hypotheses, such as the presence of any regularity in time, and the in uence of di erent tectonic/physical factors that regulate the spatial occurrence of earthquakes. At the same time, a reliable earthquake forecasting has undoubtedly a huge social impact because it may mitigate the seismic risk

The mid-developmental transition and the evolution of animal body plans.

Animals are grouped into ~35 'phyla' based upon the notion of distinct body plans. Morphological and molecular analyses have revealed that a stage in the middle of development--known as the phylotypic period--is conserved among species within some phyla. Although these analyses provide evidence for their existence, phyla have also been criticized as lacking an objective definition, and consequently based on arbitrary groupings of animals. Here we compare the developmental transcriptomes of ten species, each annotated to a different phylum, with a wide range of life histories and embryonic forms. We find that in all ten species, development comprises the coupling of early and late phases of conserved gene expression. These phases are linked by a divergent 'mid-developmental transition' that uses species-specific suites of signalling pathways and transcription factors. This mid-developmental transition overlaps with the phylotypic period that has been defined previously for three of the ten phyla, suggesting that transcriptional circuits and signalling mechanisms active during this transition are crucial for defining the phyletic body plan and that the mid-developmental transition may be used to define phylotypic periods in other phyla. Placing these observations alongside the reported conservation of mid-development within phyla, we propose that a phylum may be defined as a collection of species whose gene expression at the mid-developmental transition is both highly conserved among them, yet divergent relative to other species